[okfn-help] IdeaTorrent for incubator.okfn.org, Vilfredo, OpenID, OAuth, PuSH (integration/exchange etc.)

[Graham Perrin]

(Off-topic from OKFN: I can imagine Vilfredo, or something like it, being useful at my place of work … reorganisation of faculties, planning a new building, co-operative ways of working before, during and after the move etc.. Blind cc of this e-mail to a few of my colleagues.)


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Vilfredo
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(Re-ordered a little)

On 3 Dec 2009, at 16:30, Ed Pastore wrote:

> As an alternative, may I suggest Vilfredo?

> Vilfredo is a tool (admittedly in, roughly, late alpha) which actively promotes idea development.

Re: the alpha status, at <http://vilfredo.org/viewquestion.php?q=18> 
(Generation 5: Phase: Evaluating Existing Proposals)
submission of my one endorsement — an intuitive 
[√] tick in a check box 
followed by a click on the 'Submit!' button seems to do nothing. I'll report the issue to developers. 

> The difference is in the view of voting. IdeaTorrent allows groups to identify the most popular answers. However, the most popular answer is not always the best answer.


So true! And lateness (see below) can be a significant; sometimes a person will have no awareness that question has even been asked, until after a popular _but disagreeable_ answer bubbles to a surface — somewhere other than the place where the question originated.

> Often a much better answer comes from ingenious thinking and doesn't make sense to everyone at the outset. And just as likely, the best answer might be none of the proposed answers, but rather something which blends and synthesizes various answers proposed by different people. Or a great answer might come along late in the game, and not be able to get enough votes since a so-so answer already has a lot of support.

Re: lateness, distinguishing between late proposals and late endorsements: alongside the fifth generation example above, at <http://vilfredo.org/viewhistoryofquestion.php?q=18> I see other proposals amongst the previous generations. For a while I saw no way to endorse or 're-enliven' a proposal that's not in the current generation, which left me wondering: 

* if people arriving late are allowed to add a late proposal, then why can they not (more simply) express their late endorsements to an earlier proposal?

In that frame of mind, a temptation is to repeat/duplicate a past proposal. I can imagine impatient users doing so.

Eventually I noticed the (less intuitive) small asterisk alongside the tiny minus sign and the big thumbs down, not far from the massive thumbs down, I *assume* that the asterisk represents an opportunity for late endorsement. Not sure. In this area the UI could be clearer. (Compare with the fairly unmistakable green up and red down arrows in IdeaTorrent.) Again, I'll feed back to developers and in the meantime I might run some Diigo highlights across <http://vilfredo.org/FAQ.php>.  

> It allows everyone to propose answers to a question and then vote on the answers. It does not pick the most popular answer, but rather winnows down the answers to a "Pareto front." Or in lay terms: to the minimum set of answers where everyone's votes are represented. it then repeats its process ad infinitum until it reaches a consensus.
> 
> You can read how it works in detail here:
> http://metagovernment.org/wiki/Vilfredo#How_it_works
> 
> As rounds of voting progress, people end up morphing their answers, integrating bits of other answers, or even developing entirely new ideas based on the answers provided by others.
> 
> Again, the tool is still in a somewhat early stage of development, so it takes a little getting used to, but you can use it without any setup (other than a login):
> http://vilfredo.org/
> Though you may wish to read the FAQ before you dive in, or the metagovernment.org link above.
> 
> It also supports "rooms" so that you can make a dedicated OKFN room that is not visible to the general viewer.

All very interesting, thanks Ed! 


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IdeaTorrent, OpenID, OAuth, PuSH etc..
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On 4 Dec 2009, at 20:14, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> Ideatorrent does look good. The only thing that Rufus and I wondered about, is would it be nice if users were integrated with KnowledgeForge user management, so users could have a single OpenID login for a suite of OKF services? Currently it does not support OpenID yet [1], but of course this may change.

+1 
to OpenID

> Ed: Vilfredo looks interesting - thanks for the suggestion! At the moment I am inclined to think we want something that is in full release, tested, stable - and that preferably that could be integrated with our existing infrastructure. But we should definitely keep an Vilfredo

+1 
to integration and interoperability, exchange of relevant data …

> [1] http://demand.openid.net/site/ideatorrent.org
> [2] http://www.ideatorrent.org/docs/en/installation.txt.html

>> At <http://www.diigo.com/annotated?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ideatorrent.org%2Fnode%2F1&uid=26573> the long term plan is intriguing,
>> 
>>> IdeaTorrent instances collaborate between themselves, in a P2P fashion
>> 
>> but I have no idea whether there has been progress in that area.

… and thinking about the various systems, it would be smart if relevant data in one system could be represented in others. Example: 

* in the Common Room of Vilfredo: an 'open question' generates 'proposals' A, B, C, D, E

* in an IdeaTorrent: that open question is represented as an 'idea'

* within that idea: five 'solutions' A, B, C, D, E (representations of the original proposals).

Keyword: OAuth.

A step further: in each proposal in Vilfredo, represent (or at least link to) the comments in the IdeaTorrent.

More advanced: an open question in Vilfredo, or an idea in an IdeaTorrent, might be represented as a 'suggestion' in an instance of UserVoice. Or represented as a something-or-other on a wavelet.

Of course Pareto principle etc. in Vilfredo ≠ IdeaTorrent ≠ UserVoice. With such unequal approaches, the *presentation* of OAuth-exchanged data would require careful thought, to avoid misinterpretation. Pros, cons. Amongst the greatest pros (for me) would be: 

* a proposal/answer/solution offered in one pace need not be repeated in other places.

Eventually at some level I might want a dashboard, an overview of my contributions to the various forums/systems. (An idea along those lines is currently ranked #17 at <http://uservoice.uservoice.com/pages/1/suggestions/41344>.) PubSubHubbub (PuSH) and Salmon Protocol may be ways to go. Some highlights at <http://groups.diigo.com/group/Web2/content/tag/PubSubHubbub>. (Mozilla Raindrop <https://mozillalabs.com/raindrop> also comes to mind, but that's nebulous at the moment. PuSH is more concrete.)

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Much of the above, notional and off-topic from 'IdeaTorrent for incubator.okfn.org'. But thought-provoking and (for me) timely.

I'll let okfn-help get back to the more immediate nitty-gritty of the incubator …

Best, 
Graham